As you can tell from my name, I am a super noob at the fish thing. Please go easy on me, i am still learning.

I got my first betta 8 months ago. She is a steel blue. My profile picture is her when i first brought her home. Since I've had her, her health has deteriorated and I think it is due to my noobness. When i bought her she had 1 puffy eye. As soon as i got her in her new 2.5 gallon Aqueon tank with a carbon filter and mini heater, filled with zepherhills spring water, I gave her a round of antibiotics. Possibly fungus cure. I followed the directions on the box. After that didnt work, I dumped her tank, scrubbed everything with hot water, refilled with spring water and gave her a different antibiotic, probably tetracycline. Followed directions. No change. Did another cleaning. I may have done 1 other antibiotic. No change, cleaned tank. So I just decided she had a big eye naturally. I continued keeping her in her spring water for awhile and then learned about water conditioner. So I got Stress Coat + and Stress Zyme + and slowly introduced tap water with the two addatives to her until she was at 100% of that. Through out all this i fed her hikari betta-bio gold pellets, 3 a day in evening and sometimes a freeze dried blood worm as a treat.

After having her a little while longer, she started developing a white edged patch that is slightly darker in the middle on her back end. No behavior change. Happy and hungry and swimming. I started with the antibiotics again and sometimes I would see a small improvement but mostly no change. It is hard figuring out what disease your fish has and the closest thing i could find was ammonia burns. So I started being rigorus with water changes and testing the ammonia with test strips. Most of the time the strip would be in the stress area. I was doing 50% water changes ever 3 days. And every couple weeks, dump the entire tank, scrub everything with hot water and replace with stress coat conditioned water. Her patch got worse and developed into a raised area where the patch was. I kept looking into how to lower the ammonia and finally figured out what cycling was. My tank only had a carbon filter and I've been dumping and cleaning the tank a lot probably destroying any helpful bacteria i had. I invested in a mini 3 stage filter (toms) and replaced the carbon filter. I've had it in the tank about 2 weeks. Ammonia levels havent changed so I know i need more time for the tank to cycle. Im just doing water changes now to keep it down. And I tested my tap water and it shows it starts with ammonia in it. Erg! So I ordered some Prime but dont have it yet.

During my learning curve my betta has been getting worse. Her patch is now on both sides of her back end and her eyes are cloudy and puffy. It looks like she has little white specs right in the middle of her eyes, like cataracs. She is now developing a smaller white patch in the middle of her side. She started spending a lot of time sitting on the bottom of her tank only coming up for air. Then she started staying on her betta hammock that is 2 inches below the surface. Just laying there. She still ate fine. I moved her to a hospital bowl so i could give her meds and not mess up my cycling and so it would be more shallow. Its a bowl with 4 cups of stress coat water and it is sitting on a lizard aquarium heater with a thermometer in it. Temp is 80 degrees. I have administered tetracycline to her for 4 days. Doing 100% water change every 2 days. Her mood has improved over the 4 days. She is swimming, eating, making bubbles. But her patches and eyes still look the same. I need help determining what this is and what to do to help her get better permanently. Check links for pictures

Housing
What size is your tank? 2.5 gal
What temperature is your tank? 78
Does your tank have a filter? new 3 stage
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? 3 stage has a spray bar
Is your tank heated? yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? none

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? 3 hikara bio gold pellets and sometimes a freeze dried blood worm
How often do you feed your betta fish? 1x a day, fast on sunday

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? every 3 days
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 50%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? stress coat +, have added some stress zyme + to boost new 3 stage filter

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? white flat patches, darker in middle, slowly growhing
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? getting more lethargic
When did you start noticing the symptoms? several months for patches, few days for lethargy
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? hospital tank, 80 degrees, tetracyclin for 4 days
Does your fish have any history of being ill? most of the time i have had her
How old is your fish (approximately)? bought her from store 8 mo. ago

Never use bottled water, it deprives your fish of nutrients they get from regular tap water.. The Stress Coat+ is good, I use that all the time. You're doing alot right, like with water changes and a heater, it's basic stuff most people get wrong.

She looks like she has popeye, a tumor and i can't tell if it's a fungus or body rot.

I'm going to tell you to buy some stuff so here we go..

Aquarium Salt, you're going to do daily water changes in a Hospital Tank of 1 gallon. Find a heater if you can for a 1 gallon or place her hospital tank inside her home tank that has a heater so the water stays warm.

You're going to be doing daily water changes and adding 1 TSP (teaspoon) of aquarium salt every day. Make sure the salt is fully dissolved before adding her into it. Also remember to use tap water and 1 cap full of Stress Coat.

Find some medications..

Maradel's Maracyn is good for Body Fungus as well as Popeye and some cloudy eye too.. It's a powder. Just use a little sprinkle every day with your daily water changes.

In the last photo it doesn't appear your fish (who actually looks like she is really a he) actually has a fuzz, which means that it might be a body fungus and not a true fungus, sounds confusing but there's actually a difference. Body Fungus is a bacterial infection and is best treated with Maracyn.

Can you get more photos of your poor fish?

Oh, the reason i say she i think is actually a he is because of the ventral fins. In your avatar photo it looks as though it's a female, but i think it was just a young male since the other photos show long ventral fins. So i think your she is a actually a he :)

Cheese has it spot on. Switch to tap water and use a water conditioner to remove chlorine and heavy metals. A hospital tank is a great thing to have handy, but if you don't have one, take the fish out, clean the tank and then fill it partially, depending on how large it is. Just don't use any soap or anything that might be harmful to the fish.

If you have a fairly large tank, buying a separate hospital tank setup is nice, because they are often much easier to handle while changing water frequently.

AQ salt is a must for keeping on-hand. Dissolve it in water and then add it to the tank, or dissolve it in the tank while the fish is out. If you add it to new water that you're going to pour into the tank, remember to use conditioner on it as well.

I've used Maracyn for popeye and eye-clouding, and it works, depending on the cause. Since we could be looking at a serious bacterial infection here, Maracyn (or Maracyn Two) is a very good idea. One packet treats 10 gallons, so you'll need to figure out how much of a packet you need to use at any one time. Dose the water daily for 5-7 days. The back of the box will tell you more.

Best of luck. Looks like this will not be easy or simple to beat, but we can give her (him?) a fighting chance.

Edit: Oh yhea, when adding the fish to a hospital tank or a clean new tank, make sure the water is as close as possible to the temperature the fish is currently in. This helps avoid shock.

oh no, its so bad! She/he doesnt act like it but maybe thats because Ive never seen a happy fish. I need to go get a 1 gal tank and some maracyn. I'll just use the heater from her 2.5 tank. I have a bag of aquarium salt. When you say do water changes, do you mean 100%? I think that is what you mean cuz you said do tsp of salt.

Here is something that is disturbing me. I got the API Master Test Kit yesterday and i did an ammonia test on plain tap water and then tap water with Stress Coat. According to the colors on the chart, the plain tap water was between 0 ppm and .25ppm and the tap water with stress coat was bright green like .5 ppm. Why would there be more ammonia in the water after I use stress coat?

Not sure. Are you using test strips or a liquid test? Strips are only marginally reliable.

You can use your existing heater, just be careful that it doesn't cause the tank to overheat. Move your thermometer if you have one. 78-82 would be perfect.

Just do daily changes of the water, since there will be no chance for the hospital tank to cycle. Get your new water ready beforehand, a little warmer than your tank water and then use your conditioner. By the time the conditioner does its thing, it should be down to an acceptable temp range to avoid shock.

It's a liquid test. I get 5ml of water and add 8 drops of bottle 1 and then 8 drops of bottle 2. Shake and wait 5 min. I thought the liquid tests didn't measure "safe" ammonia. It would make sense if the stress coat is breaking down chloromine and rendering the ammonia harmless but I have no idea if its doing that.

So a capful of stress coat is 10 ml. That's not too much for 1 gal?

I found some meracyn plus from the pet store. Is that good? They didnt have any 1 gal tanks. What do Yall use?

How do you guys do water changes? What do u do with your fish? Put him in a cup? Do u use your hand or a net? I read nets are bad. I have like a bazillion questions and searching the net is so confusing.